User blog:Megamangohan/A World Without Grace Reflection
A World Without Grace Reflection. Here, I will be answering the question of why I styled things a certain way, and how my world Without Grace verse got to the point of where it is now. To start off, I gave myself the following question. “We have so much ‘Christian’ media, so many books, movies, music, art, etc. why aren’t there many Christian video games?” I started moving down the list. Is it violence? No, Christians embrace violence in their media. Is it swearing? Mature content? Probably, but that exists in all the other forms of media as well. “What makes it so different when it comes to something as a video game?” I think I had my answer. What is the message you hear at the end of every video game? Say it with me now, “You Win!” This is the over centralizing point of the meaning of every video game that has ever presented. There are two factors that differ every other piece of media that exists in comparison to video games. A video game gives you interaction and consequences for this interaction. YOU are a direct cause of many of the things that go on in video games, YOU are the reason you see the results screen as you do, and YOU are the winner. Without this, the genre of media could not even be named as a “game.” Books, Movies and Music have you sitting down and consuming the information that is being given to you. These are not active requirements. Only the maker of the piece of entertainment requires any work to give what has been produced off that piece of media. There are two things that create the overall message of Christianity, at least, given to the most basic interpretation to New Testament scripture. 1. 1. You Can’t achieve “It” 2. 2. I (God/Jesus) CAN achieve “it” “It” mostly refers to salvation, but it can also take reference to the minor struggles we see in our everyday lives. At the beginning, end, and/or the center of the difference the message must be clear that Jesus is the person carrying the burden that we are not able to pay. While a Video Game technically could show the same following message, it would require a separation between gameplay and story. In other words, the “game” exists outside of the story, because if the game portrayed the message of another person, especially an all-powerful God, taking the burden that you are supposed to handle, then that would remove most, if not all, the actual difficulty of the game. There would be no “achievements,” because the game would be being carried for you. All the gameplay, is done, by God. Something’s off, there is no (effective) way one could create a good “game” that also lies under the category of being “Christian,” without creating a massive oxymoron between the two messages being shared. So I decided to do the exact opposite instead… Here was my thinking process at that time. “It’s a question why so many people hate God, especially the Christian God for that matter? He has spent more time showing love to everyone than hate, and even if his actions in any way could be considered evil, at least he is willing to offer people some form of grace, even if the way presented is pretty terrible.” While it is very possible to say that this world is better (which I might expose later,) I absolutely do not believe this is the absolute worst. My intention now, is to actually show the world that there could be Gods far worse out here. My argument is if you reasonably hate the Christian God, how much more would you hate a God that is the absolute worst in every way possible? This is where the idea of “God” came from. His mission was to create angels and humans to worship him for all eternity. Here are the three conditions they must follow. 1. 1. There are a lot of laws that must be followed, these are hard. 2. 2. Disobedience of even a single law would grant you absolute Hell for all eternity. 3. 3. Disobeying a single law will have that weight carried on by all of your group members. Everyone shall be held accountable for your own action, whether that is unfair or not. I think this worked. My hope is that most people would see the actions of this cruel God, and then be thankful that they lived in the Christian World with the Christian God, (or any religion for that matter,) rather than this cruel representation of God. My hope was that people would hate God less. So what about the main character himself? Well, in a World with grace, everything would be done for him, but in a World Without Grace… He has to do EVERYTHING! Considering this, I decided to make everyone in the story a Jerk. SATAN is a jerk, his minions are jerks, God is a jerk, and everyone the main character, Guiomar, is trying to save is a jerk. Overcoming Sin is very hard, actually near impossible. I say “near” impossible because free will makes the argument that sin is a choice. But we all know how stupid that argument is, If people did have free choice, than a lot more people would be obtaining states of righteousness than we are currently seeing. Anyway, he was probably going to instantly die in the world I created. So I gave him a failsafe that goes as follows: If he dies, he respawns to the nearest “checkpoint” both in game and in canon. He knows about the respawn, but has no idea where it came from. I do this for two reasons. 1. 1. If Guiomar had no failsafe, he would instantly die. 2. 2. If Guiomar had a failsafe, and he knew about it, he would not panic, thus removing many senses of urgency and character development. Now let’s get into the main character’s response to what he had to do. He was an average kid, who for the first time became aware of the destruction this Satan was about to bring to the world. He fell ONCE by accident, but he didn’t let that stop him. He has to give the rest of the world this message that they needed to turn away from their mistakes, while also showing that he is not at fault himself. This kid put absolutely everything into making sure he could overcome the law. He studied every rule, followed every rule, etc. My question as a writer was how was I going to make this person fail. Guiomar is meant to be the representation of a person who can obey every law with absolute certainty, no matter how hard the law is. There had to be something that even he couldn’t do. The reason for this is that if another person came up to me, claiming to follow every law, of which there would be many, there would have to be a sin that even a perfect person would be responsible for. I found two… The first was simply birthright to sin. But the other… Was the trolley problem! Here is how it goes. There is a Train on a track that is about to split into two. It is heading in the direction of one sin, but if Guiomar turns the tracks, it will lead into a different sin, but that one would be of a lesser evil. I thought this system was perfect. It would lead Guiomar into situations Where he would always be accountable onto God no matter which way he turned the tracks. All I had to do now was to constantly reduplicate the situation. This way, even the most righteous person would have to admit guilt in this system… right… Well for now, Guiomar turned the tracks every time. This is due to his nature as a consequentialist. Guiomar ONLY acts IN TERMS of the number of souls saved. Salvation is the highest form of consequentialism, and that should be for the highest number. Guiomar is not trying to overcome the law because he loves God, he is only doing it so others won’t see him as a hypocrite, and then he can effectively tell the others to stop doing bad. This should have stopped everyone, but it didn’t. They kept going because they saw failure in Guiomar. While Guiomar was just turning the tracks, the people interpreted it as if he was just willingly trying to sin. Nobody listened, nobody repented, everyone perished. This was except for SATAN and Lust because of their durability, and Guiomar due to his failsafe option. I could have created a rival dynamic, and maybe a character who still believed in good, but opposed the consequentialist idea, but that would ruin the difficulty curve. It would have made Guiomar see that maybe if there was another way, but that is not the point of the story. One may say that I could have had both sides fail, But Guiomar would still be left with the idea that there was another good person that existed, and that I did not want, as that would ease the tensions of his emotions. I wanted no ease, only absolute mental chaos. How does Guiomar respond to everything that just happened, as in his entire world just got destroyed? He decides to destroy his emotions, create the “prefect” system of morality, and see all humanity as selfish, and the only way they can escape it is through a very hard preaching from Guiomar! His destructive desire for truth makes it near impossible to create unity. As for SATAN, he just had the easiest victory ever, and as so, he becomes prideful in comparison to other villains, who would never be able to defeat their own “good guy” that easily. I Decided here, that I am not a game designer, these ideas are best described as a story with gameplay elements here and there. Guiomar’s character development creates a great gateway into part two, where a viewpoint in the hero’s journey can be described, and invalidated! Keep in mind that there was nothing Guiomar could do, every decision he could have made would have not changed the end result of the destruction of humanity. Now for Part 2. I need characters for Guiomar to develop with, because his personality has evolved, and I need to find a way to express its true nature in action. Remember Guiomar’s traits, he’s “morally perfect” at this time, which means he will always put that moral system over working with others and a basic sense of unity, unless of course, unity does not interfere with the moral system. Because I made everyone in the last story as a jerk, it will be very hard for him to see that there is good in humanity. This means that when someone does something with neutral, or even good benefit, and it appears evil within his limited perspective, he will always assume that person guilty before innocent. Of course, Guiomar still fears guilt for wrongdoing himself, so he will not allow himself to participate in any fun, no matter how innocent it may seem. I could have developed a bunch of my own characters to fill this role, but that would take too much time and effort, so I decided to take characters from other franchises, so that I wouldn’t have to waste much time developing such companions to interact with, and I can just skip to the point of the story. Plus, it hits people harder with nostalgia when they see a moment hit with their favorite character. And the Project X Zone Series, was by far the best rep to target Guiomar in. All I had to do, was plug him in with the rest of the cast in the story, and insert events as if he were in the game despite not being. This changes some rules. First, “God” is now only a Universal being who only has authority over Guiomar’s verse, and none of the others. This gives diversity. Second, all these Universes are chained together in a multiverse. Many of the events within each of the stories remain canon, unless I change the characters bio for reasons I will explain later. Many of the God level deities are removed from their respective canons, so cosmology doesn’t get too confusing Last, MY version of the Project X Zone crossover is canon. For those who don’t know, Project X Zone is a massive Crossover between Namco, Sega, and Capcom characters, It’s an RPG styled video game. I cannot describe how tired I was of the Namco, Sega, and Capcom characters of the game being thrown into parties and having fun every 5 minutes. The team had very little disputes, and far more time was focused into making jokes and references to each other rather than the any conflict that would lead to insightful character development. I decided Guiomar would be the perfect rep to get these characters out of their comfort zone. How the Dynamic Works. This is a standard division between Truth vs Unity, most of you are aware of how this works. People aren’t comfortable with the truth, so it is more important to get people working together, than it is to make slightly better decisions. People have different perspectives, but if those different perspectives do not create Unity when deciding how to handle a situation, the time spent fighting within the team will allow the opposing side to gain advantages during the fight, mainly that the opposing team would be assumed acting in sync. Guiomar doesn’t directly start fighting with the team, he gives time to express some of his characteristics to the team, so that the team knows him better. First, he shows off his strengths, mainly being his wise ability to figure out complex issues, and the ability to survive on his own. I then show a mirrored weakness as a result of his strength. His wisdom leads to pa perfectionist attitude. Paradoxically, he lacks the wisdom to see that sometimes figuring out a perfect answer isn’t the best way to overcome problems, especially where there is a basis of time. This is showed where SATAN hits Guiomar for taking too long to answer a question. Now begins the detachment phase. This is where I show that Guiomar acts “differently” in comparison to the rest of the cast. He is very willing to get himself into danger that everyone would be too cowardly to do, because he operates and thinks in the basis of fear. This means that he focuses on problems he can’t see that haven’t happed yet and only have some abstract probability of happening, rather than the very problems that exist right in front of him. People are meant to see this “difference” as a foreshadow to the future disunity he is about to create with the team on the basis of a dispute in opinion. Note: Guiomar also starts to realize the effects of the “failsafe,” which leads to the riskier actions, although he does not understand it completely. Now the actual disunity can arrive. I use LUST the character from Guiomar’s verse, to create that first wave of disunity. Lust as a word simply means desire. While it can be a desire for anything, Lust is most associated as bad in regard to relationship outside marriage. This is bad because it creates disunity between the male and female partner. Paradoxically, it is the disunity that results in the disunity in regards to a faithful marriage, that creates the actual disunity here. A lawful relationship is unity, an unlawful relationship is disunity, so what does that make a person who disunifies people over a dispute over an unlawful relationship, which in it of itself, was disunity. In other Words, Guiomar creates disunity, OVER disunity. Lust is usually associated with men. The conflicts between Zero and Iris, and the conflict between Vashyron and Ogami and all of his girls were the perfect examples to create disunity over. These men were essentially trying to peek on other woman’s clear bodies without permission. In Zero’s case, he was about to unlawfully unite with a girl that would wipe out all humanity in exchange for peace with robots. What was Guiomar’s response when these events happened, it was to kill them all! Why such a sudden shift an attitude. Well the first reason is that Aty from the Summon Knight series said all of the men in the team were guilty for even allowing the boys to act in such ways. Guiomar, wasn’t having any “sin” get into him. But there’s a more important reason. Guiomar believes that the “God” of his universe is still in control over all the universes, even though he is not. Guiomar might have wanted to kill because “that’s what God demands,” but Guiomar does not listen to divine command, he listens to consequentialism, meaning this conclusion is both wrong and a misconception. The consaquences he feared were that a “God,” would send these men and woman to Hell after they died and they would burn in eternity forever. This is why Guiomar went so far as to be about to kill them, because he did not want their eternal soul to perish. Guiomar does not realize this problem was never the case. It is actions like these that makes Guiomar a disservice to the team rather than a benefit. Guiomar did nothing to contribute helpfully to the team except fight bad guys, his actions had no bearing on the overall consequences on the Journey in its entirety. The team would have made more progress without Guiomar stepping them back all the time. Even if he acted “good” and “unifying,” the most he could have done was fight a few bad guys, in which the team could have taken care of themselves anyway. This is where I create a balance. To prevent the evil team from winning and having a massage edge, SATAN from Guiomar’s verse, tries to disunify the team, which slows down their progress, instead of advancing anything, as well. His reason for doing this was his pride. He actually destroyed his whole universe and lifeforce population, while all the others did not defeat their heroes. This leads to arrogance. This makes SATAN try to get the other villains to worship him, as he thinks all of his methods are superior to the desires of the other villains, due to his history of easy wins. SATAN has no regard for “working together” with his team, as he only understands being above his minions. What does all of this mean? The only thing that happened to both characters was character development. SATAN has caused consequences, but Guiomar shall never. He shall be an observer at best, and a destroyer at worst. Both SATAN and Guiomar learned to stop relying on themselves and their own thoughts for everything. They learned that it is important to have feelings for others, and that sometimes the need of others come before their own desires. This was strongest emphasized when Guiomar was at his weakest, where asking for help was the only way to escape. What we see here is a classic example of the Hero’s Journey, a person who has talents, abuses their talents, and spends no time working on their opposite traits, only through going through hell can they see that they can’t always rely on their strengths, and they need to rely on something new. This would be a great place to end the story. BUT I AM NOT SATISFIED! Have you forgotten what this story is about? The story is titled “A World Without Grace” for a reason! Because a lack of grace exists, there is supposed to be absolutely NO method for the hero to EVER reach that ultimate goal they are searching for. Do you realize, that it is this Hero’s Journey mentality that is the ultimate enemy to the story I need to write. I need to prove that righteousness is impossible to achieve by ANY method. The “Hero’s Journey Mentality,” gives the impression that all you have to do to achieve righteousness, is to balance your personality with its opposite coin. So listen to what I’m about to do next. All of the characters from these alternate universes who have successfully gone through their “Hero’s Journey” are about to shift into a great deal of trouble. I’m going to use LUST to wipe his memory of much of the things Guiomar has experienced right before she dies. One may question what was even the point of this adventure to begin with. First, understand that I am efficiently saving Guiomar from a greater trouble the rest of the cast is going to receive later on. Guiomar still keeps many of the memories of the various types of characters he’s met, as well as all the fights he had with them, which never resulted in any positive consequence. In short, Guiomar will remember all the times he hurt people instead of helping them, he shall not remember the moral that simply being kind to others was all he needed to do to overcome this struggle. Thus, the “trolley problem” still remains an issue for Guiomar. So what now, Guiomar’s universe is destroyed, the rest of the multiverse was just saved, at this point Guiomar’s just a universe traveler, where he will see new systems that conflict with prior beliefs he had about reality before. So the universe he ends up next is… Undertale… For those of you who are not fans of this RPG game, just trust me that I have a way of dealing with the characters of this verse… I will not provide all the details for the interactions that happened here, that will be saved for my Undertale Game Plan post. Here I will provide the most important bits of information. 1. 1. This “Game” has 4 routes, 1 Pacifist, 1 Neutral, and 2 Genocide. The Pacifist and Genocide routes are discouraged since they fall into the category of “Being Strong.” A neutral route is simply the most humble of them all. 2. 2. Guiomar takes the Neutral route. His surface conflict will exist between the choice of killing the monsters in front of him in terms of self-defense and exiting the underground, or to spare them, and risk dying himself, and not exiting. If one looks beyond the surface of the conflict, they will realize Guiomar has no care about the lives of the monsters while trapped in the Underground. This is a classic argument of “Why protect a life that is going to die and fade to exist anyway, when there are other creatures like the humans who souls will last forever, which need to be protected now, since their lives, and thus their eternal destiny, will be determined within such a short period of decision making. 3. 3. DETERMINATION the concept plays a huge role in the story. Guiomar is revealed to have it in terms of the fact that he can raise his power level, but is not revealed if or if not Guiomar has his failsafe option, (which he has, is not fully aware of, but is becoming more aware of. Guiomar, having the experience of loads of failures, but no victories, denies this is true. Flowey reveals the “kill or be killed philosophy” as a form of self-defense He proceeds to torture Guiomar at the end of the barrier since Flowey wants the power for himself. 4. 4. I found many differences between Undertale and a World Without Grace, but the most shocking thing I found was that Undertale’s most important message existed in sync with one of A World Without Grace’s important message. BOTH agree that the Destination surpasses the Journey. While one may interpret the Journey has more Weight than the Destination, it is what happens at the Destination is kept forever, the Journey only exists for a moment. This is most notable when Flowey says in the Genocide run (in the original Undertale) that it was his boredom of the game that allowed him to have the will to start destroying everything as if it were his own. This is also shown in the Pacifist Run (in the original Undertale,) where Flowey warns you that restarting the game, thus becoming OBSESSED with the game, will ruin everything. Undertale takes a conflict with Nier Automata as well. Nier rewards you, (well someone else,) for your restart, while Undertale scorns you for your restart. Of all of these the most important of these 4 factors was the one Regarding DETERMINATION. Because Guiomar could not accept his determination as an actual concept that was guiding him through the underground, he could not escape. Because Flowey wanted Guiomar power, he had to get Guiomar to accept that he has actual power to bring that power out. In the final scene, Flowey freezes time, and decides to torture Guiomar in frozen time for an extended period of time. Guiomar remembers his failures and doesn’t accept the power, as his failures weigh him down. His desire to protect humanity one more time comes soring in, allowing Guiomar to break the time loop, destroy Flowey, and free himself from the barrier. Just remember this timeline is about to be reset… Guiomar has gone through two Hero’s Journey’s now and 3 Adventures. He has experienced times where his efforts have led him nowhere, and he has experienced times where he has tried, and has won. Flowey is a deceiver as many are. Guiomar has no idea what, or I should say, who, is about to come, and send in great wrath upon those who have successfully completed their Hero’s Journeys. No one else does either. He can accept this power, and suffer as everyone else is about to, but will he do it? He considers, but then eventually puts the offer down. All he did was win a battle, he has won many battles, but he has not, and will never, win the eternal salvation of humanity. But maybe someone else can… A New “essence” has emerged. He went into the Underground of Undertale himself and had committed a Genocide Run. Many scorned him, but Omega looked down upon the monsters. He saw them as prideful and Arrogant, thinking they were better than humans. He knew not to give them mercy, as once a mouse is given a cookie, he expects more gratitude from the person, milk, a straw etc. It was the exact same mentality he saw within humanity, expecting more from people than they were willing to give themselves. The monsters had praised those they put labels on, while those who didn’t reach that label were looked down upon. It did not make sense to them, a standard of righteousness needed to be put somewhere, but everyone kept setting that bar where they felt comfortable with. Omega decided this was enough, and Swore to kill every monster in the Underground for expecting him to enter a standard of righteousness. Chara, the human who witnessed was impressed. They made a deal to fuse their two SOULS together, half-and-half in Chara, and together they became Nanashi. This isn’t the canon Nanashi you know of, but his body type appears to be the same way. As A dark core, he was (paradoxically) the most powerful of SATAN’s creations, who was known as the “Core” of part one. He had access to everything. This is where the introduction to SMT comes in. Very specifically, I will use SMTIV Apocalypse to tell this story. The viewer gets introduced to a new character, YHVH, as the god of everything. He has become unable to watch the universes all separately, and has decided to merge every universe together as one. There will be “Nations,” but each Nation shall be as big as the size of a Universe itself. This means just Planetary level beings, could reach Multiversal in a snap. Power Levels became very chaotic. Here are some rules for this new “Planet.” 1. 1. All Characters from Sega, Capcom, Namco, as well as other Konami, Nintendo, etc. guest stars are present, but only a few will actually be shown in story. 2. 2. There will be more biblically based characters. They will not fight, only interact in story. 3. 3. Most of the divine beings of each of the universes have been erased for the sake of cosmological consistency. 4. 4. Personalities have changed. Some of the characters are getting completely new backstories to fill this new world. Others have massive changes, but are not completely changed. 5. 5. Guiomar’s original Universe remains untouched. Nanashi is the new main character, while Guiomar will move to a disciple character for a showcase of his humility. Here is what has happened. Do you remember in Part 1 where Guiomar was the only human who was trying to be perfect while everyone else was a Jerk? Things have now turned around; every single character will have a personality that akins to Guiomar’s original personality. I don’t mean unkind, although that will be very common, I mean that they will try to be perfectionistic, meaning they will obey every single law that YHVH gives to the absolute of their potential, only a few problems. The Trolley Problem is still present, but this time it’s far more complex. Instead of having two tracks and a train will be about to hit people, there will be all sorts of tracks, and trains going every which way. All of the characters shall put their own standard of righteousness on the very way they choose to turn the tracks, while shunning those who choose to move the tracks a different way than them. Do you see the problem here? They will try to achieve their own righteousness as Guiomar has done in the far past, but unlike '''Guiomar, they aren’t letting a simple “lesser of two evils trolley problem” stop them from achieving that righteousness. This is meant to relate the Hero’s Journey with personal Experience. They start of as one way, learn to be another way, but what happens next? They are all so stuck up in that very singular path they learned through their experience, that they shun all other pathways as “Wrong” and “Less Righteous” than theirs, despite those '''Different conclusions coming from Different experiences that almost contradict the original experience from that Different person. A Few Questions. 1. 1. Is Nanashi going to be a Jesus rip-off? The Answer is no. I could perfectly make him a Jesus Knockoff. The biggest problem with this is that Jesus teaches that there are some works that are required for salvation and others that simply cannot be forgiven. One example for this is that you need to believe in him to be saved. This enforces the work of searching for rational evidence to prove his existence. Another example of this is “letting go.” This is a work very difficult for those who have suffered to accomplish. The people who then accomplish these''' works''' prideful see themselves above those who can’t. YHVH, the new God, is a representation of the Christian God, so I am going to scorn these ideas instead of embracing them. From a World Without Grace, to a World “Beyond” Grace, they could say. 2. 2. How is Nanashi going to get these characters to see that Strength isn’t everything? Easy, have Nanashi outpower the characters. This will force the characters to accept the message without breaking Free Will. This needs to be “forced” since if it wasn’t, those that accept the Grace will pridefully see themselves above those who don’t. Paradoxically, this means Nanashi has to be Strength as well, for it takes a lot of strength to show how powerless we really are. 3. 3. What about the many characters who don’t place their very identify on Strength? A Very Smart Cookie you are. If you watch this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiYf6ITgWbk You will see that that God, as in the Christian God, also scorns those who equally place their identity in sin, over himself, just as much as those who place their identity in righteousness, over himself. The answer to this is simple, place that identity of Sin, as equal to that person’s form of pride and superiority. Also remember that those who are humble can place their pride in their ability to be humble (paradoxically.) And the Most Important Question… 4. 4. Why is a Lack of Strength so “Morally Superior” to those who accept Strength? This is an oxymoron, as I have placed Humility as “Stronger” than Strength itself. The Answer is this. I do not know, I do not have the Strength to answer that question. But I do know this, it can’t be a statement of “giving and growing.” Every villain who exists with an ideology that at least some people can accept as “good,” has to do it from a basis of “Strength.” Any form of “good” can be filled by strength, regardless of it were Unity, Survival, Resources, etc. If I wanted to teach a statement of Humility, is has to be a statement of “what is,” because Strength fills the statement of “what ought to be,” rather than “what is.” A Bonus Question. 5. 5. Why just not put meaning in anything at All? This I believe is a special case, I am fine with those who walk this path. I cannot find another response to this question. I Will be up against most of the ideologies that pride themselves on Strength. While this '''is not all '''media, this form of “Strength” is praised by most, including the Bible, which embraces “Strength,” in other words “Giving and Growing,” but only praises “Humility” to a lukewarm degree in comparison. If you Like my Idea, please Join me in this battle to finish this story, if you hate this idea because you don’t agree with it, thank you for reading anyway. If you hate this idea because I am changing a fictional character you love, or adding in a fictional character you hate… I’m sorry… Category:Blog posts